How to Destroy a People Through Immigration.  Multiculturalism is simply a tool for divide and conquer.  Is there then any point in trying to comprehend its logic at all?  Maybe it was just a convenient excuse used for disrupting the established order of nation states by flooding them with mass immigration under the cover of "cultural diversity" or historical inevitability.  If that is the case, there never was any coherent logic behind it, so we shouldn't waste our time looking for one.  Many of those promulgating it never believed a word of it themselves.  Multiculturalism is the new Allah:  Don't understand, just obey.

Multiculturalism: What the Left Would Prefer You Didn't Know.  Multiculturalism is a very specific political philosophy which could scarcely be further removed from the idea that we should live in one big, happy, multi-ethnic melting pot and all just get along.  That's because it means the exact opposite.  It's about separatism, not integration.

Multiculturalism is a Failure.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that in Germany, multiculturalism has "utterly failed."  Both Australia's ex-prime minister John Howard and Spain's ex-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar reached the same conclusion about multiculturalism in their countries.  British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that multiculturalism is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to homegrown Islamic terrorism.  UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said the United Kingdom's push for multiculturalism has not united Britons but pushed them apart.  It has allowed for Islam to emerge despite Britain's Judeo-Christian culture.

UKIP's Farage: Multiculturalism Creating 'Fifth Column' in West.  In the wake of Wednesday's massacre of twelve people at a satirical French newspaper by suspected Islamic fundamentalists, UK Independence Party head Nigel Farage warned that the obsession with fostering a multicultural society has created a "fifth column" in the West.  As leader of the UK's fastest-growing political party, Farage has pushed a British exit from the European Union and a reform of Britain's liberal immigration laws, which his party believes limits economic opportunity for UK citizens and threatens the nation's social fabric — even its physical safety.

Diversity set Ferguson on fire.  Commentators offer different reasons why Ferguson is burning.  They blame racial injustice or militarized police or the police officer who shot an unarmed teenager.  Some even blame Michael Brown.  But all these explanations miss the truth:  Ferguson is symptom, not cause, and the cause is diversity.

POLL: 95 Percent of BBC Viewers Think Multiculturalism Has Failed.  [G]rowing evidence suggests that multiculturalism itself is responsible for increasing segregation in Britain.  Last year the Daily Mail reported on the phenomenon of 'White flight' — that is, white British people moving out of London in vast numbers.  Between 2001 and 2011 some 620,000 white British people left London, tipping the ethnic makeup of London into majority non-British heritage.

Is Black History Month still needed?  How valuable, knowledge-wise, is a single month for youth who have practically the whole of human knowledge at their fingertips on their phones?  Furthermore, these African-American Millennials say they never really learned anything useful during Black History Month activities at school, and they fret that having a formal, month-long observance gives the nation a pass to ignore black history the rest of the year.  Despite all that, they'd keep it.

The downside of diversity.  Diversity can bring risks as well as benefits and perils as well as perks.  There are trade-offs to be made, for example between the trust that comes from sharing a common background and the cultural sensitivity that comes from employing people from different parts of the word.

Why Obama is Uneducated.  A few years ago I participated in a radio debate on "white privilege" with a certain man, whose name is unimportant, who had a Ph.D. in "ethnic studies."  At one point he introduced an argument by saying, "If whites are 80 percent of the population...," which prompted me to interject and point out that whites (non-Hispanic) are now only 63 percent of America.  Of course, you might think that someone with a doctorate in "ethnic studies" would know what the ethnic and racial composition of the country is.

Homosexuals Get Duck Dy-Nasty.  "Tolerance," as it has been marketed, was always a con. [...] For one thing, tolerance always implies a negative, real or perceived; you wouldn't have to tolerate a beautiful car or a delectable meal — you relish those things.  But you might have to tolerate a cold or bad weather.  Thus, tolerance is only noble in two situations:  One is when dealing with something objectively negative that cannot be eliminated, such as irremediable pain.  The other is when confronted with something you don't happen to like and could avoid, but that is objectively good or neutral; an example would be tolerating a food you detest in order to avoid offending your hosts.

Blacks and Obama.  Obama's electoral success further confirms what I've often held:  The civil rights struggle in America is over, and it's won.  At one time, black Americans did not have the constitutional guarantees enjoyed by white Americans; now we do.  The fact that the civil rights struggle is over and won does not mean that there are not major problems confronting many members of the black community, but they are not civil rights problems and have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination.

Lawmaker: Hire more whites to run government.  Robb Pitts, a county commissioner in Atlanta, Ga., says the county needs to hire more whites. [...] Pitts, a black, said, "I would encourage the county manager to find ways to inform all ethnicities when new positions arise and make a concerted effort to diversify our employee base."  That was in a recent email to constituents, and Fulton County Personnel Board Chairman Paul Zucca says still today the workforce "needs more diversity."

The Editor says...
Why not hire the best available workers, instead of the ones that will produce just the right mix of colors?

Multiculturalism is the enemy of democracy.  Here we go again. Brazen and brutal attacks against British and French soldiers.  In broad daylight.  At the hands of homegrown Islamic extremists (Mr. Adebolajo is reported to have shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as he struck).  European conservatives reflexively clamoring for a crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism.  The left reflexing reminding us that the West is not at war with Islam.  This latest horrific chapter of Islamic radicalism brings me back to a topic I have often chronicled over the past 20 years:  the specter of multiculturalism.

Minority Student Needs.  Quack multiculturalism is the name [Professor Craig] Frisby gives to the vision of multiculturalism that promotes the falsehoods and distortions that dominate today's college agenda, sold under various names such as "valuing diversity," "being sensitive to cultural differences" and "cultural competence."  He identifies different brands of multiculturalism such as boutique, Kumbayah, light-and-fluffy, and bean-counting multiculturalism.  Insider language used to promote multiculturalism includes terms such as "practice tolerance," "celebrate diversity," "equity with excellence" and "differences are not deficits."

Confidential, expensive USDA sensitivity training: 'The Pilgrims were illegal aliens'.  Footage of the United States Department of Agriculture's compulsory "Cultural Sensitivity Training" program reveals USDA employees being instructed to refer to the Pilgrims as "illegal aliens" and minorities as "emerging majorities" — at "a huge expense" to taxpayers.  The video clips were made public Thursday evening by the conservative government accountability group Judicial Watch, which obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made on May 18, 2012.

White America Asks: Where Is the Animus?  White Americans feel like prisoners stuck under a microscope, where everything they do and say is judged through the prism of color.  If a white person looks askance at a black person, it is automatically assumed to be racially motivated; if white police pull over a car driven by a black person, it is because he has been racially profiled as "DWB" — driving while black; if a white person commits a crime against a black person, there will likely be a rush to judgment based on skin color alone.  Is every deprivation suffered by a black person at the hands of a white person racially motivated — be it the loss of a job, the denial of a mortgage, rejection from a school play or sport, termination of a friendship, denial of entrance into a university or graduate school program, loss of a bid, refusal to rent, etc.?

De Blasio's security sergeant 'must be black'.  Mayor Bill de Blasio has an opening on his personal security detail — and the candidate has to be black, The [New York] Post has learned.  The head of Hizzoner's protection unit — staffed by a racially diverse group — has been calling other commanders asking for recommendations, law enforcement sources said.  "A boss on his security detail is looking to recruit a new sergeant but they have to be the right racial makeup.  He is looking for a sergeant but the sergeant has to be black," a source told The Post.

School workers say they were fired because they weren't Hispanic.  Two former school district employees, including the one who oversaw its affirmative action policies, filed race discrimination suits in September, saying they were fired because they're not Hispanic.  Bernice Marshall, the former human resources manager, and Edmund Treadway, the former transportation manager, argue in Superior Court filings that the Perth Amboy School District is favoring Hispanic job candidates and employees.

White teacher wins $350K in racial discrimination lawsuit.  Maryland teacher won a $350,000 jury award after accusing a black principal of forcing him out of his job because he is white.  Jon Everhart sued the Prince George's County school board, alleging that he faced years of racial discrimination by Principal Angelique Simpson-Marcus at Largo High School, The Washington Post reported. [...] Mr. Everhart, who was fired in 2010, said the principal told students that the "only reason a white teacher teaches in P.G. County is that they can't get a job elsewhere."

White teacher wins $350,000 in Prince George's schools bias lawsuit.  A former Prince George's County teacher won a $350,000 jury award after accusing the school system of discriminating against him because he is white.  Jon Everhart alleged in his lawsuit against the Prince George's County school board that a black principal forced him out of his job because of his race.

White is not right: Campus admins ask for help weeding out white people.  Western Washington University sent a questionnaire to students asking them for advice on how the administration could succeed at making sure that in future years, "we are not as white as we are today."  The question notes that WWU's racial make up does not perfectly reflect the nation at large, and asks students to consider strategies that other universities have used to focus on skin color as the paramount indicator of a student-applicant's worth.  The president of WWU has stated that his explicit goal is to reduce the white population on campus, according to Campus Reform.

The Editor says...
Substitute "black" for "white" and imagine the uproar that would ensue.

TSA Wants to Hire 'Economically Disadvantaged Woman Owned Small Business'.  The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is looking exclusively for an "economically disadvantaged woman owned small business" when it awards its next $30 million contract for security training.  The agency announced a solicitation for a company to conduct training for its Inter-Modal Security and Training Exercise Program (I-Step) last week. [...] An economically disadvantaged woman is one who earns less than $350,000 a year, with a net worth not greater than $750,000.

The Editor asks...
What happened to "equal employment opportunity without regard to race or gender"?

Lesbian boss 'fired me for being straight'.  A married, heterosexual gym teacher at a tony Upper West Side private school was fired because his lesbian supervisor disapproved of his "traditional family status," the canned teacher claims in a new Manhattan lawsuit.  Gregory Kenney, 50, taught gym at the Trinity School on W. 91st St. for 16 years before he was let go in June 2012.

Pentagon training manual: white males have unfair advantages.  A controversial 600-plus page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers teaches that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and warns in great detail about a so-called "White Male Club."  "Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege," reads a statement in the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).

The Editor asks...
What does "social privilege" have to do with the Army?

College Kicks Out Afrobeat Band for Being "Too White".  Apparently bands now have to be the same race as the music they're playing.  That's going to be a problem.  So no more white rappers or black classical musicians are allowed. [...] America may be ready for a black man in the White House, but apparently it's not ready for a white Afrofunk band.

Band loses college gig because [they are] 'too white'.  A popular jazz band named Shokaboza that "blends jazz and old school funk, with a West African beat" has just been told by Hampshire College in Massachusetts that it is "too white" to be allowed to perform a scheduled Halloween party gig on campus.

HUD's Power Grab.  [Scroll down]  Bear with me as I report the basics of the new policy, beginning with the purpose of AFFH, which the rule says is "to improve fair housing choice for all."  People possess improved choice when they "have the information, options, and protection to live where they choose without unlawful discrimination and other barriers related to race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or handicap."  And while "all" people should have such choice, the focus of the rule is on accomplishing better choice for blacks and Hispanics in particular.

Campus Roundup.  Amherst College in Massachusetts, long known as one of the most left-leaning liberal arts campuses in the nation, added several "diversity seats" to their Student Senate, which are reserved for groups that have been "historically silenced."  But when conservative student Ted Hertzberg applied for one of the seats citing the fact that only 2 out of 160 professors at the school are registered Republicans, he was rejected.  The other four applicants for the seats — an international student, a gay student, a Latino student and an Asian student — were all accepted.

More diverse = less white.
New Hispanic Chief Judge Calls For More Jury Diversity.  Born in Chicago to immigrant parents, Ruben Castillo became the first Hispanic Judge to lead the busy federal court district that includes his hometown and proclaimed on Tuesday [7/2/2013] that one of his priorities will be helping ensure that juries are more diverse.

An Uncontrollable Ego.  Perhaps the most damaging Leftist assault ever was reverse discrimination to make up for white racial sins going back to the slave trade that ended in 1865; that racialist revenge narrative still drives reverse discrimination, forty years after the start of "affirmative" action.  It will never end, as long as there is a penny to be made on racial blackmail.

'Whites need not apply' at D.C. labor board?  Ondray Harris, the African-American executive director of the Public Employee Relations Board of the District of Columbia, stepped down last week. [...] Harris claimed in his letter that two members of the board, Don Wasserman and Ann Hoffman, complained over his hiring of a white female, Erin Wilcox, because they perceived her "as being conservative or politically right-of-center."  According to Harris, at a meeting on Nov. 8, 2012, Hoffman declared that "somebody with a resume like hers doesn't belong here" and "should never work here."

'Any race except Caucasian'.  A casting call for a new host of a children's program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the taxpayer supported, government-owned television and radio network of Canada, accidentally told the truth, when it specified "any race except Caucasian."

Parents Upset Over Tutoring Program That Excluded Whites.  A Colorado school principal is apologizing after he mailed parents a letter informing them that an after-school tutoring program was for non-whites only.  Andre Pearson, the principal at Mission Viejo Elementary School in Aurora, also left a voice mail message confirming that the program excluded whites.

Elementary school bans white kids from tutoring.  An elementary school principal in the Denver suburbs told parents that white children would be excluded from an after-school tutoring initiative.  Andre C. Pearson, the principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora, Colorado sent letters home to parents informing them that only students of color are eligible for the program, KJCT, the local ABC affiliate, reports.

Black principal bans white children from after school tutoring program.  This is an amazing story.  In short, Andrea Pearson, Mission Viejo Elementary school principal in Colorado sent a letter home with students that informed the parents of an after school tutoring program for students of color only — no white kids allowed.

Racial Favoritism and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.  Earlier this year, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) decided to disinvite two predominantly white high school choral groups from performance in the ASO's holiday concert.  The ASO's decision was reportedly motivated by the high schools' lack of diversity, which caused a stir among people who believe in racial justice as opposed to racial favoritism.

'Stop Being So Anglo'.  "Allegations of racism and other discrimination against San Francisco Housing Authority Executive Director Henry Alvarez are flying in lawsuits filed by his subordinates," the San Francisco Examiner reports.  It's a man-bites-dog story inasmuch as Alvarez is black and his accusers are white — the reverse of the usual race-discrimination stereotype.

Suit calls S.F. housing head bully, racist.  The San Francisco Housing Authority, which runs more than 6,000 units of public housing for the city's poor, is headed by an executive director who discriminates against white employees in favor of African Americans and regularly employs offensive, outlandish language and behavior in the workplace, according to a lawsuit filed by the agency's own lawyer.

Harvard Affirmative Action Lawsuit Could Decrease African American Students by 50% at Elite Universities.  On Monday [11/17/2014], federal lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were filed alleging that both universities discriminated against white and Asian American students as a result of their race-based affirmative action policies.  Moreover, according to an AP article, the lawsuit against Harvard alleges that the prestigious university has a limit for the number of Asian Americans it admits each year.

Affirmative action lawsuits hit Harvard and UNC.  Lawsuits filed Monday [11/17/2014] against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill argue that affirmative action policies should be banned at colleges across the nation.  The federal suits allege Harvard and UNC rely on race-based affirmative action policies that impact admissions of high-achieving white and Asian-American students.  The Harvard lawsuit also contends that the Ivy League university specifically limits the number of Asian-Americans it admits each year.

Muslim Sues Latino Caucus for Not Giving Her Latino Scholarship.  A Muslim student with a Muslim father and Latino mother is suing the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation (ILLCF) for not giving her a scholarship even though she was a mediocre student and was accused of faking a letter of recommendation.

University of Texas can use race as factor in admissions, court rules.  The University of Texas can consider race in undergraduate admissions to promote diversity, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday [7/15/2014].  Acting in a lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court had sent back last year, Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote that considering race boosted the university's efforts to assemble a diverse student body.  "Universities may use race as part of a holistic admissions program where it cannot otherwise achieve diversity," Higginbotham wrote.  "This interest is compelled by the reality that university education is more the shaping of lives than the filling of heads with facts — the classic assertion of the humanities."

The Editor says...
In other words, indoctrination and multiculturalism are more important than marketable skills.

UCLA prof says stats prove school's admissions illegally favor blacks.  Public universities in California are barred from using race as a factor in admitting students, but a UCLA professor who once served on its admissions oversight team says he has proof they do it anyway.  While the first round of admissions consideration is handled fairly, African-American students are nearly three times as likely to make it out of the "maybe" pile than equally-qualified white students, and more than twice as likely as Asians, according to Tim Groseclose, a political science professor at the school and author of a new book [...]

Coming End to Racial Preferences.  Last week's U.S. Supreme Court 6-2 ruling in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action et al. upheld Michigan's constitutional amendment that bans racial preferences in admission to its public universities.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor lashed out at her colleagues in a bitter dissent, calling them "out of touch with reality."  She went on to make the incredible argument that the amendment, which explicitly forbids racial discrimination, itself amounts to racial discrimination.  Her argument was that permissible "race-sensitive admissions policies," the new name for racial preferences, both serve the compelling interest of obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body and inure people to the benefit of racial minorities.  By the way, no one has come up with hard evidence of the supposed "educational benefits" that come from a racially mixed student body, and there's mounting evidence of harm done to minorities through academic mismatching.

In Washington, It's Politics "By Any Means Necessary".  The Supreme Court, in a moment of unusual clarity, ruled last week that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment did not prohibit states from requiring public universities to treat applicants of different races equally.  Or, in other words, equal protection is not opposed to (14th Amendment) equal protection.  It is a powerful testimony to the Orwellian nature of our legal world that such a question arose in the first place and that two Justices could be found to dissent from the ruling.  The full name of the original plaintiff, however, reveals much:  "Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary."

Supreme Court Upholds Michigan Affirmative Action Ban.  The justices said in a 6-2 ruling Tuesday [4/22/2014] that Michigan voters had the right to change their state constitution to prohibit public colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions.

Supreme Court upholds Michigan's ban on affirmative action in college admissions.  In upholding a ban on the use of race in admission decisions at Michigan's public universities, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't end affirmative action — they just very strongly upheld the right of voters to ban it.

Antonin Scalia faults Sonia Sotomayor for 'doubly shameful' suggestion that Michigan voters are racist.  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia faulted Justice Sonia Sotomayor for making what he regards as a "shameful" suggestion that the Michigan voters who decided to ban affirmative action in college admissions were motivated by racism.  Scalia wrote a concurring opinion upholding a 2006 ballot initiative that amended Michigan's constitution to ban affirmative action. [...] Sotomayor, in her dissent, opened by describing three stages of "the majority" discriminating against racial minorities in the political process, beginning with the Jim Crow laws that flouted the 15th Amendment.

Krauthammer: 'Leave the decision of affirmative action up to the people.  Charles Krauthammer told viewers Tuesday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that Tuesdays Supreme Court opinion that effectively ends affirmative action at public universities in Michigan was a sound decision.  "The left is trying to institutionalize affirmative action to make it impossible for any legislature or any referendum ever to abolish it ever in the history of the country," the syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor said.  "An outrageous proposition that was rejected by the court."  Krauthammer said the issue should be decided on a state-by-state basis.

Court's affirmative action ruling: A step towards respecting states' rights.  With its ruling upholding the right of Michigan voters to ban racial preferences in state university admissions, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday took what legal scholars are saying one more step away from the concept of federal supremacy.  The 6-2 decision reversed a 2012 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down the voter initiative on the grounds that it violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and carved out more power for the states over Washington in the process.

Raced-Based Preferences Forever.  What was called "racial quotas" in the 1970s and has been referred to as "affirmative action" since the 1990s is giving way to a new term:  "race-sensitive admission policies."  The language shift is telling — race-based preferences are losing intellectual, judicial, and political support. — Yesterday, the Supreme Court voted six to two to uphold the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), which was passed with support from 58 percent of that state's voters in 2006.  It simply enshrines in Michigan's constitution that the state should not engage in race discrimination.  Opponents of the initiative sued, claiming the measure discriminated against racial minorities who might wish to lobby for preferential treatment.

A Lack of Affirmative Action Isn't Why Minority Students Are Suffering.  In a 6-2 decision, the Court held that a ballot initiative by Michigan residents to bar the use of race preferences as a factor of admission was constitutional.  On a Court that has consistently issued closely contested opinions — often in 5-4 decisions — the overwhelming majority of the Justices recognized the importance and the legality of people in several states like Michigan to prohibit the use of race as a factor in admissions.  Despite the commentary to the contrary which is likely to follow in the coming days, the Court did not address whether colleges or universities could use race as a factor of admission — they wisely left the decision to the voters in individual states to make such a decision.

Supreme Court upholds Michigan's ban on racial preferences in university admissions.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday [4/22/2014] made clear that states are free to prohibit the use of racial considerations in university admissions, upholding Michigan's constitutional amendment banning affirmative action.  By a vote of 6 to 2, the court concluded that it was not up to judges to overturn the 2006 decision by Michigan voters to bar consideration of race when deciding who gets into the state's universities.

Going Negative On Affirmative Action.  The good news about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling is that it affirmed the right of the people to ban racial preferences in university admissions.  The bad news is that it didn't go further.

Scalia's plain truth on affirmative action.  [The US Supreme Court] issued a major ruling that upheld Michigan's 2006 constitutional amendment banning the use of affirmative action as a factor for admission in the state's public universities.  That amendment had been adjoined to the state's constitution following an election in which nearly 4 million votes were cast -- and in which the side supporting the amendment prevailed by a 16-point margin, 58 percent to 42 percent.  No matter; in a highly provocative 2011 ruling, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday, with a 6-2 vote, threw the 6th Circuit's ludicrous decision onto the trash heap of history's discarded ideas.

Justice Sotomayor and the affirmative action bitter-enders have lost bigtime.  There is a growing body of experience indicating that the phenomenon known as "mismatch" results in minorities being placed in situations where they cannot compete with the more-qualified students who received no such preferences.  The results have been high drop-out rates, leaving failed students worse off than if they had been admitted to institutions where their qualifications were similar to those of other students.  This is precisely what has happened with the end of racial preferences in California following the passage of Proposition 209.

The 'Wise Latina jumped the shark.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped the shark Tuesday with her lengthy dissent from the Schuette decision, read aloud from the bench.  Although the liberal media sympathize with her and presented the decision as a setback, the positions she took are at variance with both the clear meaning of the text of the Constitution and with the sentiments of the vast majority of Americans, who consistently vote against racial preferences whenever they get the chance.

Half a Win on Racial Discrimination.  There's a reason they call it "progressivism" — for years, the main legal question contested in affirmative-action cases, from Bakke to Grutter, was whether the state should be allowed to engage in racial discrimination.  In the Michigan affirmative-action case decided today [4/22/2014], Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the question was whether the state should be required to engage in racial discrimination.  The progress, then, has followed the Left's familiar ratchet-effect model, inching its way from "not forbidden" to "compulsory."  Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal put it, the question here was not whether the use of racial discrimination for putatively benevolent purposes is constitutional but whether states "may end racial preferences without violating the U.S. Constitution."

What Race Preferences Hide.  Any person attempting to overcome hardship can look to Sotomayor for inspiration.  But as she demonstrated in her long, impassioned dissent in the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the experience of benefiting from race preferences has left her prickly and defensive on the subject.  As others, including her Supreme Court colleague Justice Clarence Thomas, have argued, that kind of gnawing insecurity is one of the consequences of preferences.  Others are never sure if you've achieved your position entirely on merit, and neither are you.

Finally getting it right on affirmative action.  Every once in a while a great, conflicted country gets an insoluble problem exactly right.  Such is the Supreme Court's ruling this week on affirmative action.  It upheld a Michigan referendum prohibiting the state from discriminating either for or against any citizen on the basis of race.  The Schuette ruling is highly significant for two reasons:  its lopsided majority of 6 to 2, including a crucial concurrence from liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, and, even more important, Breyer's rationale.  It couldn't be simpler.  "The Constitution foresees the ballot box, not the courts, as the normal instrument for resolving differences and debates about the merits of these programs."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor proves herself not so wise.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor this week took the unusual step of reading her dissent in a case involving state-sponsored affirmative action in Michigan.  In doing so, she showed herself not only petulant to be on the losing side in a 6-2 decision, but unable to divorce her legal reasoning from her own sense of racial grievance.  It was an embarrassing but predictable performance.  In 2009, I was one of a handful of witnesses who testified against Sotomayor's confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  I did so with sadness, because there is much to admire in Sotomayor's personal history.

Asians Derail Affirmative Action In California.  The express train hurtling to return racial preference admissions to California — in the form of State Constitutional Amendment 5, which if placed on the ballot and approved by voters would have overturned Prop. 209  — has just been derailed by an outburst of opposition from Asian Americans.  The eruption of opposition caught SCA 5's Democratic sponsors by surprise and caused a crucial three Asian American senators to withdraw their support, depriving the measure of the two thirds senate majority required to place an initiative on the ballot.

Racial spoils system starting to fall apart in California.  California's ruling Democrats are in danger of splintering their coalition over an attempt to re-introduce affirmative action, which has been banned ever since the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, which banned the use of racial preferences by the state, including in higher education.

Racial Preferences Under Siege.  Two recent events, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast, demonstrate that after half a century, support for racial preferences in college admissions is getting more and more unsustainable — both politically and intellectually.  In California, liberals have long deplored the 1996 passage of Proposition 209, which banned racial preferences at state universities.  Its backers pointed out that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is often cited as the authority for mandating preferential treatment for racial minorities, actually forbids all racial discrimination.  "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race," Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts has concluded.

Supreme Court justices' comments seem to favor Michigan affirmative action ban.  The Supreme Court appeared eager during oral arguments Tuesday [10/15/2013] to uphold a Michigan ban on affirmative action, with the justices even considering whether they would need to overrule previous precedents to make sure the state's color-blind school admissions requirement can remain in place.

False Equality in Michigan.  Can a state's citizens amend the state constitution to ban affirmative action programs in public universities, even if the Supreme Court has approved those programs?  That is the question the court is facing this week in the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.  The court last considered an affirmative action case out of Michigan in 2003, when it upheld the race-conscious admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School.

Black Skin Privilege.  This collectivist view of guilt and debts that erases individuals and their accountability is now entrenched in America's institutional framework.  In the 1970s, affirmative action was successfully redefined to mean racial preferences for non-whites, and a new standard was set for admissions policies at universities across the United States.  Though black students' median SAT scores in any given year were at least 200 points lower than the median for white students,' blacks were admitted to virtually all academically competitive schools at much higher rates. [...] Inevitably the racial bias does not stop with the admissions process.  Once a university accepts black students, under-qualified for that school though they may be, it is imperative that they remain in school and eventually graduate, poor performance notwithstanding.

Elite colleges confronting failure of affirmative action.  A new report from researchers at Georgetown University must be horrifying diversicrats at elite colleges and universities.  The report's title, "Separate and Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege," gives away the conclusion of the study.  Despite all the efforts at affirmative action, as a whole, the top tier of colleges is making racial inequality worse, rather than better.

School Administrators at NC University Allegedly Inflate Grades of African-American Students.  Two things immediately come to mind when reading these allegations:  First, not only is it immoral and presumably in violation of the school's honor code to inflate grades for undeserving students, but it's completely unfair to those whom [sic] worked hard for the grades they undoubtedly earned.  And second, how offensive!  The notion that any group of students — merely because of the color of their skin — needs to be "taken care of" by a small group of "administrators" is repugnant on its face.

Abigail Fisher says she's confident UT 'won't be able to use race in the future'.  Abigail Fisher, a 23-year-old at the center of this year's Supreme Court case on affirmative action, predicts that Monday's [6/24/2013] decision will mark the end of race-based admissions at the University of Texas.  Just hours after the court sent her case back to the district level, Fisher said the decision brought the nation "closer to a day when student's race isn't used at all in students' admissions."

Race discussion may crowd out scandals in wake of Supreme Court affirmative action decision.  Get set for a Supreme Court decision that could alter or even end affirmative action.  Or not.  Predicting SCOTUS decisions is hazardous, but Fisher v University of Texas could plunge the nation into heated discussion of the role of racial preferences in education and beyond.

The Real Damage from Racial Preferences in College Admissions.  Three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Todd Gaziano, Gail Heriot, and Peter Kirsanow, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the Fisher case.  Their Commission found "extensive empirical research" showing that "students who attend schools where their entering academic credentials put them in the bottom of the class are less likely to follow through" pursuing a major in science or engineering than other students with similar credentials "who attend schools where their credentials put them in the middle or top of the class."  The Commission found the same thing to be true in law schools [...]

Even in Medical School, Affirmative Action Rules.  When it comes to becoming a physician, the academic rigors, years of schooling, and personal sacrifice common to the effort are well-known.  This process is a sort of rite of passage, an intellectual marathon that only the best and brightest can complete.  As such, medical schools should select candidates best-suited to excel throughout school and cultivate the skills that will allow them to practice in the best health care system in the world.  The process by which these candidates are selected, however, may come as a shock.

Equal Treatment Under the Law.  Ward Connerly says the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas may help kill racial preferences once and for all.